Almost Paris
by Just Lovely
Summary: AU. There was only so close that they could get - to Paris and to a perfect love. !Secret Santa for anticollision.


**Disclaimer:** none

_Dedication:_ to Hannah (anticollision). I hope your Christmas is wonderful and fun. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Prompts: "I'm not a morning person." "It's not morning." / safe place / shutdown / clouds / "Watch out for snakes." / glow / bones / touching hands

_Almost Paris_

**By: _Just Lovely._**

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She could still hear the rush of water against the green moss rocks, the soft flutter of a bird's wings beating in mid-flight. Her dream swam in her head as she blinked in her surroundings and the imminent darkness registered in her brain. She shivered as she sat up in bed, twitching fingers clutched the blankets to her chest, as a slow breeze waded in from the open window. She peered out to the balcony with half-lidded jade eyes, the long white curtains leading to the open doors blew out and intricate webs of white lights of a serene night greeted her sudden uneasiness.

She sighed with fatigue and lay back down, eyes already starting to close, her dream already starting to re-create.

The corner of her bed sank and her eyes snapped open. She parted her lips but the scream never left her as the pale hand of the intruder pressed firmly onto her face, her wild eyes searched frantically around the room as she struggled. A hand grasped both of hers as she sat in bed, constrained by a stranger.

"Sakura, calm down."

She was too young to be put in a situation like this, nineteen and barely an adult. Too innocent to have this happen to her, too small, too innocent, too young, too... she blinked, then, a sudden realization dawning on her. Just how did this stranger know her name?

She pulled one of her hands free, and locked eyes with the stranger's, her hand reaching out. She could see the face in her mind's eye, the familiar length of hair that she used to run her fingers through, the similar lining of tension in the jaw and the familiar glint in the eyes.

Sakura pushed against his shoulder, tugged out of his grip and swept the blanket over her head, hearing him land onto the floor in result of her action.

Her breathes were heavy as they escaped her. "God, you scared me. There's a reason why I'm not a morning person, you know..." she said, slowly trailing off as she suddenly came to understand how familiar she had reacted to the sight of a man who had left her.

"It's not morning." he replied and pulled the blanket off her.

She peeked at the red figures of the digital clock; one minute before midnight. A sigh escaped her lips and she stared up at the ceiling, "What are you doing here, Sasuke?"

She could practically see the smirk manifest on his lips as he answered in his usual tone, "Taking you sight-seeing."

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There was a place she used to go to, a safe place where she could look up at the sky and always see white and fluffy clouds. A place where she could let herself shut down and cry, laugh, smile, dream – as if forever was just a little walk away. Every time she looked around, there was always green; every time she lay down on the grass, all she could see was blue.

Sakura closed her eyes and saw her safe place just a breath away; the water in the stream trickling across smooth, round rocks, an spring breeze running through her hair.

"Open your eyes, Sakura." Sasuke instructed from a few steps ahead, he turned his head to look over his shoulder. "And watch out for snakes."

Her eyes opened, black flooding her vision for a brief moment as ever so slowly, threads of moonlight streamed down through the night. She could barely make out his figure through the dry branches that wove fences along the dirt-tracked path they followed. Sakura took a sharp breath of the late December air, feeling the chill travel down her trachea to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her toes.

"Snakes aren't likely to be out at such a cold temperature, Uchiha." she retorted and pulled her woollen cardigan closer to her goose-fleshed skin. "But then again, humans aren't supposed to be either."

"Always such a stickler to the rules, Sakura. I see you haven't changed much." he replied, speaking in a tone that suggested that they were on friendly terms.

"And I see you're still the asshole who left five months ago." she bit back, feeling anger stirring inside her. She hadn't missed him for a while, though the stiffening of his shoulders brought both ache and satisfaction to her.

It turned quiet for them both, then. The longer they walked, the darker it got, the colder Sakura felt and the heavier the ball of hurt in her chest swelled.

She could still remember what it felt like to be near Sasuke – to feel safe and warm, even happy and then when he had just left... what a wreck she had been, how cracked and broken and shattered she was inside. There had been a moment where she had hoped he would come knocking on her door and tell her how stupid he had been to think she wasn't important enough to make him stay, she had sat by the door for days on end, waiting for it to happen.

That moment still lived on in her, still raw. It made her realize that pain seemed to be something that Sasuke always had trailing after him. And a part of her wondered if she wanted to be a part of that again.

Sakura stopped, then, and almost wished she hadn't because even though Sasuke couldn't physically see that she had stopped following him, her footsteps stopped echoing his. The look in his eyes was akin to something like curiosity, a _surprised _curiosity that made her think that she had surprised him with this sudden action. Had he really thought that she was still so in love with him that she couldn't form a coherent thought against him?

Sasuke rose a fine brow at her as he turned to face her and folded his arms across his chest, even through the darkness she could see that a part of him believed that he held some amount of power over her.

"I'm not going to follow you anymore."

"You've come this far haven't you? The old Haruno Sakura never left things hanging, are you going to break your own rule?"

Sakura clenched her jaw. She wouldn't let him get under her skin, she wouldn't. "It doesn't matter how far I've come because as long as I don't reach the finish, I can always go back."

"Are you sure about that?"

And suddenly, she could very easily see his face, and every detail about him that slowly stripped away her resolve under the moon's glow. He was too close.

"What if I never reached the finish, Sakura?" he continued. "Would I be able to come back?"

She stared disbelievingly at him and felt confusion start to unravel her, a large part of her wished that what he was saying was true. Her tongue felt too heavy to move to form words, her fingers curled into her palms and she let a long breath escape her. "I don't... I wouldn't be the judge of that."

"What if I'm coming back now?"

"I highly doubt that." Sakura said, taking a step back. She hadn't thought he would still have such a strong influence on her.

Sasuke leaned forward, his dark eyes locked with hers. He surveyed their surroundings, "We're almost there, Sakura."

"Almost where?"

He looked back over his shoulder, through the tips of fir trees and to the horizon where she instantly knew what lay beyond. It had been her most kept-safe secret, one that she had given one day to a boy who she had trusted to be with her. She had hoped that the dream, her secret, would come true.

Paris was the only reason why she had moved away from friends and family – love had persuaded her to come, and her secret had left her with a small house a few miles away from the city of romance.

She turned her chin up at him. "I can always see Paris, Sasuke. But I can never live the dream."

"Why live a fantasy when seeing it will always fill you with a rush of euphoria?"

"Because it's not the same, Sasuke."

He stared long and hard back at her. "What if it could be?" he questioned.

"It'll always be different. I can't change that, nobody can change that, not even you."

Sasuke watched as her body shook with cold and she drowned herself in denial; she knew that he was trying to give her what she always wanted: a life in Paris. He reached out to touch her, his fingers grasping her cold ones. "Let yourself think otherwise for once, Sakura."

"I tried that before you know. When you left, I thought you'd come back, I hoped and dreamed that you would." Sakura replied bitterly, looking away from his intent gaze as she took several steps away from him.

"I'm back now." he said quietly.

"And it hurts me." Sakura snapped at him, her curled fingers shaking. She turned away from him and walked back in the direction they'd come from, packed dirt crunching underneath her boots as from the white-grey sky fell pure white snowflakes.

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Sakura wrapped her arms around her torso and saw the trees being covered with a blanket of snow, she heard silence around her and chided herself for believing that he would stop her from leaving. Maybe Sasuke had changed since then, five months could probably do that; he was just a collection of bones, now. She felt the wind pick up and blow against her frame, her hair billowing out behind her. She could barely hear in the harsh whoosh of the wind.

"I left because I thought it would help, Sakura." Sasuke said from a little ways behind her.

She whirled around to face him, cheeks flushed with cold, eyes hard. "It doesn't help when you abandon someone, Sasuke. If you want to help, you have to be there." her voice cracked at the end.

Sasuke looked at her, taking a step forward. "We needed money."

"I needed you."

"But you don't need me anymore now." he said softly and for a moment, he looked vulnerable to her. As if the way she had talked to him had actually impacted him in a way that she had thought was impossible.

"I..." she shook her head, Sakura didn't even know anymore; he had hurt her, but some part of her loved him still. Some part of her knew, hoped, believed, he still loved her.

"Do you need me, Sakura?" his voice seemed brittle and quiet, soft and gentle, a cross between a plea and a curious question.

She could feel the snow dampen her hair, the wool of her cardigan stick to her skin. She looked at him and her vision blurred, her lips parted but she couldn't even hear herself at all. Sasuke wasn't even far from her anymore because he was right there, in front of her, hands touching and his forehead against hers.

"I need you."

"I missed you."

It was almost perfect love.

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><p>Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!<p> 


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